jupiviv: Oh rosy fount of insight... Indeed, "infinite-consciousness" is itself a giant soul that suckles us malnourished monads. If only babies were wise enough to distinguish their finite milk from the milky honey of eternity! If only adults were as wise as babies, and recognised the ascendancy of Eternal Milk's earthly representative over her countless subjects!

Mother Nature don't care two shakes what you think of her ways: she'll suckle you with her honey and send you a Tsunami all in the same day.

Russell Parr wrote:She does indeed mold herself by the image he presents, but only because she can sense the higher quality of ideology and structure behind his actions, which she can never fully reproduce.

No. Woman in reciprocation to Man's projection delivers him appearance, which is the substance of all the reality which Man with his projectile illusions wishes to sunder! She being closer to the divine in the moiety of gender uses her power to pivot man from tumescence to holiness while herself following the same circumference that redeems Man to his former province of painful, bulging shame - which she with her grace circumscribes.

She is no closer to divinity, except in her presentation. In reality, he resides in divinity just the same, though through masculinity is easier for him to delude himself into thinking otherwise. She, in her own subtle delusion (for her masculinity too is subtle), perceives within herself a lack of power. She seeks to gain this power by harnessing man.

Women naturally go with the flow because the flow *is* Nature. Because men are foolish, they stand up against that which eternally passes them by. Women in their wisdom and generosity mount men's stands so that even defiance against passers-by may still be made to fare them well with fresh allies!

Men are not simply foolish, they are potential. Women, in their femininity, have no need for wisdom. Wisdom is the means by which man discovers and reclaims his independent, spiritual completion. That is what women desire most in a man.

Women imitate the ideals and fantasies of men because it makes men worship them. Therefore, the wisdom that instructs men to seek imitation by those less wise also makes them fools. And since women can turn men's wisdom upon itself, it follows that they are wiser.

Women imitate the image of his desire for feminine completion in order to gain his worship. Men see other men as mirror images of themselves, and so wish to share and propagate the wisdom that they themselves are privy of. Unwise men instead merely seek to exploit fellow men.

A spiritual man is one who, like Kierkegaard and David Quinn, decides that he shall marry the woman he cannot marry by virtue of the fact that to God nothing is impossible. Of course David Quinn took that decision further than Kierkegaard, but I digress.

I don't know who you've been talking to or what you've heard about David and his dealings with his child's mother, but it's different from what I've heard. If it is as glorious as you make it out to be, it is curious that he has disappeared from the scene following his reunion. Regardless, I'd rather hear about his situation from him than anyone else.

Regarding Kierkegaard, it seems to me that you mistake his own fantastical, and ultimately denied, version of himself for what he actually turned out to be.

jupiviv: Oh rosy fount of insight... Indeed, "infinite-consciousness" is itself a giant soul that suckles us malnourished monads. If only babies were wise enough to distinguish their finite milk from the milky honey of eternity! If only adults were as wise as babies, and recognised the ascendancy of Eternal Milk's earthly representative over her countless subjects!

Mother Nature don't care two shakes what you think of her ways: she'll suckle you with her honey and send you a Tsunami all in the same day.

Indeed, since I'm a man. We're born, things happen that Mother Nature don't care about, and then we die. But womynfolk - at least the philosophically inclined amongst them - seem to have Nature's indifference at their beck and call. Let some cis-male but attempt to channel a woman's stream of milky consciousness for less than noble purposes, and he shall suffer from the knowledge of eternal indifference bellowed into his ears until he has learned his place.

Russell Parr wrote:Men are not simply foolish, they are potential. Women, in their femininity, have no need for wisdom. Wisdom is the means by which man discovers and reclaims his independent, spiritual completion. That is what women desire most in a man.

Spirit is reality, so all things are spiritual. If wisdom is the means to attain spiritual completion, then it is non-existent and therefore having no need of it would actually be a sign of wisdom. As for wisdom - of any kind - being what women desire most in a man, that is too ridiculous a notion for me to discuss it further. By the way, are you by any chance less than 25 years old?

I don't know who you've been talking to or what you've heard about David and his dealings with his child's mother, but it's different from what I've heard. If it is as glorious as you make it out to be, it is curious that he has disappeared from the scene following his reunion. Regardless, I'd rather hear about his situation from him than anyone else.

Regarding Kierkegaard, it seems to me that you mistake his own fantastical, and ultimately denied, version of himself for what he actually turned out to be.

Relax, I was obviously poking holes in your ideas for fun in my last post. I'm not in the least interested in Quinn's personal life, but I do know he had a kid and cohabited with a woman even after he decided to pursue wisdom. I certainly don't think less of him merely because of that. However I'm not averse to gossip and in any case do actually value his contributions, so what different things have you heard about his disappearance?

And besides all that, my real point has eluded you. The upper realms of form and formlessness are desolate mansions in the sky haunted by the pretas of past lives from the realms of desire. Redeem them or become a yaksa, a king of ghosts destined to stand eternal watch over secret treasures. You are already inclined towards the latter, which is why you say things like: "Wisdom is the means by which man discovers and reclaims his independent, spiritual completion. That is what women desire most in a man."

Russell Parr wrote:Men are not simply foolish, they are potential. Women, in their femininity, have no need for wisdom. Wisdom is the means by which man discovers and reclaims his independent, spiritual completion. That is what women desire most in a man.

Spirit is reality, so all things are spiritual. If wisdom is the means to attain spiritual completion, then it is non-existent and therefore having no need of it would actually be a sign of wisdom. As for wisdom - of any kind - being what women desire most in a man, that is too ridiculous a notion for me to discuss it further. By the way, are you by any chance less than 25 years old?

By "wisdom as the means" I meant the spiritual path as the means, so I'll give you that point on a semantics level.

Women crave masculinity in a man. Pure masculinity, unbridled by ignorance, is spirituality. Women are able to sense masculinity in a man, but not to a high degree of accuracy. This is why they often fall for, or worse, prefer fake displays of masculinity; men that merely wear masculinity in the form of machoness and bravado.

Just to put it all out there, I'm 31 years old, residing in Oklahoma City. I'm half white/half black. My paternal genetics are of German/some other European descent, and my maternal genetics, despite the resounding African-American appearance, is of Portuguese/Italian descent.

And besides all that, my real point has eluded you. The upper realms of form and formlessness are desolate mansions in the sky haunted by the pretas of past lives from the realms of desire. Redeem them or become a yaksa, a king of ghosts destined to stand eternal watch over secret treasures. You are already inclined towards the latter[...]

I'll give you that, to some degree. I think it's a form of overcompensation in response to my own displeasure of not totally embodying wisdom within and towards everyday life.

jupiviv: Indeed, since I'm a man. We're born, things happen that Mother Nature don't care about, and then we die. But womynfolk - at least the philosophically inclined amongst them - seem to have Nature's indifference at their beck and call. Let some cis-male but attempt to channel a woman's milky consciousness for less than noble purposes, and he shall suffer from the knowledge of eternal indifference bellowed into his ears until he has learned his place.

If he 'has learned his place' because of perceived 'bellowing' then he is not hard enough to finish the job. :-)

Nature is indeed indifferent, but Man, made of the spirit of thought, is not. This is the struggle, is it not? The knowledge that non-thinking Nature, of which Man is an expression, is indifferent in her 'perfect' order of meaninglessness, a 'perfect' order we cannot, by virtue of our thinking (meaning-making) nature hope to attain. Perhaps enlightenment comes when Man reconciles his two contrasting natures, unconscious and conscious. After all, both are caused of the Eternal.

Things are differentiated from reality and each other and as such by their very definition not spirit. But sometimes people re-arrange stuff to hint at reality, which is then a spiritual act. The main problem with what I just wrote is that spirit and matter are never in any conceptual or actual opposition. Spirit resides where there's no opposition. The only way "all things" would become spiritual is with some realized non-existence. But then a case could be made of them being non-spiritual just the same. This is why it's said the spirit is perfect and apparent reality for ever ambiguous and erroneous.

The masculine then as a more unsettled and restless mode? Extremes, higher and lower ways to climb or sink would be the consequence of some higher degree of general dumbness, dreaming, off-beat behavior: a kind of deviant pattern which when left unchecked usually would lead to utter stupidity or at least annoying behavior. And with that one captures already a large part of the male population :-)

But to be dumb, rude and clumsy in the social aspects especially, must be some form of gift as well. Not just animalistic. Are wild animals loud without reason? The instincts function smoothly and by god, fully embodied women, in the classical sense, are like water that way.

Agreed. Though I would add that the masculine isn't necessarily, or always, unsettled and restless. Masculinity finds peace/stillness in successful reconciliation between subject and object, whether it be in simplistic problem solving, such as in video games or crossword puzzles, as well as within the more advanced realms of science, all the way up to the highest masculine pursuit of Enlightenment. The loftiness of one's pursuits is dependent upon the limits of one's masculinity. The alternative way for finding peace is in confiding with the feminine, therefore embracing an ignorance towards the dichotomy of subject/object.

Hey all,

My observations have led me to conclude it's women who are restless. Thousands of shoes, purses, and outfits are testament to that. Obsessively moving furniture about and never being satisfied with the "same ole" is further indication. Men are notoriously stuck in ruts which drives women crazy in relationships. Men are systemizers, who find optimal solutions and prefer not to deviate into something suboptimal for the sake of new scenery.

Women are generally less focused and "dreaming, off-beat behavior: a kind of deviant pattern" as mentioned by Diebs.

As seen by the narrow ‘hot’ band in the center of the page, men were very focused on the ingredients of a recipe and how to prepare it, women, on the other hand, browsed up and down the page more and were less focused – as seen by the wider, more diffused ‘hot’ band.

It would seem that lack of focus is lack of masculinity and lack of variety is a lack of femininity.

jupiviv wrote:"Feminist" can mean a lot of things, and all of them except one apply to typical women. The exception is feminism as the desire to *be* a man, which only exists in sufficiently masculine women.

The label of "feminist" is a misnomer of oxymoronic stature because the one thing practitioners do not want to achieve is femininity. A better descriptor would be "masculinist".

I've never heard of a feminist desiring traditional feminine behavior. Instead, I believe the politically correct term for that would be "misogynist".

Russell Parr wrote:Nice. Male and female will remain in attraction as long as sex, the opportunity and desire, is in play. Proceeding the union, as the couple mold each other into mirror images of themselves, they begin to repel.

Opposites complement. Instead of desiring to be same while being distinct, appreciate each other's differences and become one. Egalitarianism is divisive.

Serendipper wrote:My observations have led me to conclude it's women who are restless. Thousands of shoes, purses, and outfits are testament to that. Obsessively moving furniture about and never being satisfied with the "same ole" is further indication. Men are notoriously stuck in ruts which drives women crazy in relationships. Men are systemizers, who find optimal solutions and prefer not to deviate into something suboptimal for the sake of new scenery.

Perhaps so but your examples are more like specific psychological character traits. Like some general anxiety level? As for any systematizing activity, that's normally only happening after being able to submit to the mind's work without getting too obsessive about the systematizing itself. The only reason it might appear men are "good" at that is simply because they're less distracted and seduced by the mundane (shoes, insecurity, self-obsessing). Reason blooms out of the mind when it stops doing all the other shit. It's not men who have more inherent ability, it's more like women being distracted by too many things! Including, obviously, biological and instinctive demands. Modern times have changed that to some extent of course. Obviously men (the human mind) loves to be distracted and it's no surprise the old Bible myth talks about Eve being seduced by a fruit offering with a vague promise and Adam on his turn by Eve.

So what was I thinking with a term like "restlessness"? I didn't mean really anxiety or sorrow. It was more meant as restlessness in the existential. Not bound to anything, not leaning all of ones existence on a material or security level. This is how masculine people more easily can leave security, seem to take more risks, even endanger their health, engage in risky behavior in terms of their personal or social standing. Including dumbness or recklessness from a certain point of view. Restlessness as opposite to mediocrity or (the desire for) tranquility.

Now if this has to be mapped back to gender terms, the masculine as restlessness will tend to seek, to "marry" the material but only will approach that by obsessing or losing himself into a system, a faith or a method. The whole body of tradition which is a masculine project. The drive behind that, the "eternal spirit" remains a restless, seeking energy. At the essence it won't change even when poured into receptors.

Which brings us back to the anxious restlessness you witnessed in women. The feminine psychology is deeper wed to the material, identifying with it to a greater extent. But it's a contradiction which is always collapsing because even her spirit is restlessness but then expressed in the mundane. The mind is always changing and unless submitted to greater, higher principles, it will become swamped into mundane details, forever shifting everything around according to mood or desire. But essentially it's still the mind, increasingly trying to tranquilize itself and fleeing into the average.

The average is what I suspect was in mind when Russell introduced "regression towards androgyny", as some run to the average or flat-line.

Pam Seeback wrote:The knowledge that non-thinking Nature, of which Man is an expression, is indifferent in her 'perfect' order of meaninglessness, a 'perfect' order we cannot, by virtue of our thinking (meaning-making) nature hope to attain.

If Nature is non-thinking then all expressions of it are also non-thinking. If Nature is thinking then likewise. Likewise again for Nature being both thinking and non-thinking, neither thinking nor non-thinking, both both thinking and non-thinking and neither thinking nor non-thinking, neither both thinking and non-thinking nor neither thinking nor non-thinking, both both both thinking and non-thinking and neither thinking nor non-thinking and neither both thinking and non-thinking nor neither thinking nor non-thinking, neither both both thinking and non-thinking and neither thinking nor non-thinking nor neither both thinking and non-thinking nor neither thinking nor non-thinking etc.

So projecting finite qualities like consciousness or unconsciousness upon Nature is really your perfect image of *yourself*. Indifference to both praise and scorn is the crucial aspect of vanity, and women are vain in a way that men can't even willingly be. Thus the classic feminine cosmology is contained in the idea of an indifferent, eternal Nature languishing nowhere in particular (but possibly on a beach by a supernova while the Cherubim put on suntan lotion?) and occasionally winking nebulously at her puny conscious subjects' desperate efforts to please her. She creates all things in each moment of time, and yet does nothing in particular and doesn't tip the "balance" either way.

Speaking of which, the popular idea of some universal "balance" which must be maintained somehow perfectly complements the above. Of course, it is men who are responsible for maintaining it (after being blamed for disrupting it in their favour...God knows how). There you have it - vanity as cosmic indifference, and chivalry as maintenance of cosmic balance. Every woman in her heart of hearts believes that she is the most beautiful woman of all and too good for any man, so what better expression can this belief find?

The spiritual man is eerily similar to the cosmic demivierge described above, except that he is alone and not merely aloof. When you can be happy about being yourself regardless of what befalls you by being so, then are you truly one with all things in eternal happiness. If you are that which knows what happiness is, then your happiness lies in suffering due to that knowledge.

Serendipper wrote:I've never heard of a feminist desiring traditional feminine behavior. Instead, I believe the politically correct term for that would be "misogynist".

Odd, because almost all feminists I know of seem to desire traditional feminine behaviour. Of course, "tradition" doesn't mean "good".

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:The mind is always changing and unless submitted to greater, higher principles, it will become swamped into mundane details, forever shifting everything around according to mood or desire. But essentially it's still the mind, increasingly trying to tranquilize itself and fleeing into the average.

In other words, women possess (to varying degrees) some but not all of the ingredients required for a mind. Their brains can memorise and perform abstraction, however the latter never consistently and never without external support (imitation).

Serendipper wrote:Obscuring and making vague is deliberate obfuscation, no? It's not changing the underlying truth, but merely blurring the perception of it.

True, but not necessarily deliberately. Moreso it (femininity) is a mere regression, or unlearning from distinguishing. A desire to devolve consciousness into a mode of feeling one's way through life.

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:The average is what I suspect was in mind when Russell introduced "regression towards androgyny", as some run to the average or flat-line.

Yes, I meant something like that, though I do still retract my offered meaning. It isn't as useful as I thought it could be.

jupiviv wrote:

Serendipper wrote:I've never heard of a feminist desiring traditional feminine behavior. Instead, I believe the politically correct term for that would be "misogynist".

Odd, because almost all feminists I know of seem to desire traditional feminine behaviour. Of course, "tradition" doesn't mean "good".

Why not both? Feminists want to have their cake and eat it too. They want to CEO a Fortune 500 company while rocking lipstick and swishing their hips. To attain the status and ranks of men (the only thing men have going for them) while retaining the passive persuasiveness of womanhood. Thus men are downtrodden.

Even worse is that feminists not only seek to masculinize themselves, but also feminize men, in effort for find a happy medium. But what else do we end up with but more femininity!

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:Perhaps so but your examples are more like specific psychological character traits. Like some general anxiety level? As for any systematizing activity, that's normally only happening after being able to submit to the mind's work without getting too obsessive about the systematizing itself. The only reason it might appear men are "good" at that is simply because they're less distracted and seduced by the mundane (shoes, insecurity, self-obsessing). Reason blooms out of the mind when it stops doing all the other shit. It's not men who have more inherent ability, it's more like women being distracted by too many things! Including, obviously, biological and instinctive demands. Modern times have changed that to some extent of course. Obviously men (the human mind) loves to be distracted and it's no surprise the old Bible myth talks about Eve being seduced by a fruit offering with a vague promise and Adam on his turn by Eve.

That's a good point and I believe the distraction-argument is supported by women generally having better-connected hemispheres by way of the corpus callosum. It's a biological basis rather than psychological anomaly.

So what was I thinking with a term like "restlessness"? I didn't mean really anxiety or sorrow. It was more meant as restlessness in the existential. Not bound to anything, not leaning all of ones existence on a material or security level. This is how masculine people more easily can leave security, seem to take more risks, even endanger their health, engage in risky behavior in terms of their personal or social standing. Including dumbness or recklessness from a certain point of view. Restlessness as opposite to mediocrity or (the desire for) tranquility.

Oh I see. I took restless to mean "easily bored" and not so much as "daring".

Now if this has to be mapped back to gender terms, the masculine as restlessness will tend to seek, to "marry" the material but only will approach that by obsessing or losing himself into a system, a faith or a method. The whole body of tradition which is a masculine project. The drive behind that, the "eternal spirit" remains a restless, seeking energy. At the essence it won't change even when poured into receptors.

Are you sure you aren't describing "curiosity"? I don't see "curiosity" being gender-specific as either sex can have questions, but men are more "daring" to find the answers.

Which brings us back to the anxious restlessness you witnessed in women. The feminine psychology is deeper wed to the material, identifying with it to a greater extent. But it's a contradiction which is always collapsing because even her spirit is restlessness but then expressed in the mundane. The mind is always changing and unless submitted to greater, higher principles, it will become swamped into mundane details, forever shifting everything around according to mood or desire. But essentially it's still the mind, increasingly trying to tranquilize itself and fleeing into the average.

The average is what I suspect was in mind when Russell introduced "regression towards androgyny", as some run to the average or flat-line.

I think it's a cycle on the macro level where "regression towards androgyny" is just a phase. Strong men make good times, which make weak men, which make bad times, which make strong men.

When times are good, men give power to women out of "sympathy" for the "weaker" sex, which is actually "generational-forgetfulness" because the men who built the societal framework that led to the "good times" are likely dead and the living have no memory of the work that went into construction nor the reason it was formed in such fashion. Past generations are labeled "immoral" and perhaps "stupid" while women are granted the power to destroy the empire because it's the egalitarian and politically correct thing to do.

jupiviv wrote:Odd, because almost all feminists I know of seem to desire traditional feminine behaviour. Of course, "tradition" doesn't mean "good".

My understanding of feminism is those demanding (which is a male trait - instead of merely wanting) "equality" with men.

Coming from a position of an extreme, which is femininity, then progressing towards the center can only be progressing towards masculinity. Therefore, feminism is the process of masculinization, which may or may not stop in the center.

Feminists want to join the military rather than have a traditionally feminine role of domestic engineer.

Serendipper wrote:Obscuring and making vague is deliberate obfuscation, no? It's not changing the underlying truth, but merely blurring the perception of it.

True, but not necessarily deliberately. Moreso it (femininity) is a mere regression, or unlearning from distinguishing. A desire to devolve consciousness into a mode of feeling one's way through life

I'm not sure how you could obscure by accident in this context because blurring the gender-lines are deliberate for justification of behavior, but I get what you mean that it's more about the definitions rather than empirical objects. Then again, definitions can be objective rather than subjective.

jupiviv wrote:

Serendipper wrote:I've never heard of a feminist desiring traditional feminine behavior. Instead, I believe the politically correct term for that would be "misogynist".

Odd, because almost all feminists I know of seem to desire traditional feminine behaviour. Of course, "tradition" doesn't mean "good".

Why not both? Feminists want to have their cake and eat it too. They want to CEO a Fortune 500 company while rocking lipstick and swishing their hips. To attain the status and ranks of men (the only thing men have going for them) while retaining the passive persuasiveness of womanhood. Thus men are downtrodden.

Even worse is that feminists not only seek to masculinize themselves, but also feminize men, in effort for find a happy medium. But what else do we end up with but more femininity!

Serendipper wrote:Obscuring and making vague is deliberate obfuscation, no? It's not changing the underlying truth, but merely blurring the perception of it.

True, but not necessarily deliberately. Moreso it (femininity) is a mere regression, or unlearning from distinguishing. A desire to devolve consciousness into a mode of feeling one's way through life

I'm not sure how you could obscure by accident in this context because blurring the gender-lines are deliberate for justification of behavior, but I get what you mean that it's more about the definitions rather than empirical objects. Then again, definitions can be objective rather than subjective.

I'll give you that. There is a degree of deliberation involved with women, and to that extent, they are masculine.

"Since the soul of man is the microcosm, and great men are those who live entirely in and through their souls, the whole universe thus having its being in them, the female must be described as absolutely without the quality of genius. . . . There is no female genius, and there never has been one . . . and there never can be one. Those who are in favour of laxity in these matters, and are anxious to extend and enlarge the idea of genius in order to make it possible to include women, would simply by such action destroy the concept of genius. . . . How could a soulless being possess genius? The possession of genius is identical with profundity; and if any one were to try to combine woman and profundity as subject and predicate, he would be contradicted on all sides. A female genius is a contradiction in terms, for genius is simply intensified, perfectly developed, universally conscious maleness."Otto Weininger

Otto also seems to be equating "focus" (ie. profundity) with maleness and therefore "distraction" with femininity.

"Having myself come to an understanding of Weininger in the context of reason, that is to say in the context of his actual thought (a practice which seems to be unheard of in modern scholarship), I do not regard Weininger to be either misogynistic or anti-Semitic. I can vouch for Weininger's judgment on women, which I believe is excellently true..." Kevin Solway

I'll have to defer to Kevin's wisdom on Otto because I've never heard of the man until today, but that so many noteworthy thinkers are arriving at similar subjective conclusions and with an empirical biological basis for explanation, it gives me satisfaction to consider the issue "settled".

Russell Parr wrote:Feminists want to have their cake and eat it too. They want to CEO a Fortune 500 company while rocking lipstick and swishing their hips. To attain the status and ranks of men (the only thing men have going for them) while retaining the passive persuasiveness of womanhood. Thus men are downtrodden.

This only works in societies where most jobs (and therefore people) are effectively useless, because they have massive amounts of energy at their disposal. When that goes awry, feminists will don traditionalist attire. So it isn't *really* both, as you indicated with the cake idiom, but usual feminine behaviour of swallowing one's own bs in copious amounts for as long as one is allowed to.

Feminism and (modern) traditionalism are two sides of the same fucked up coin. A real patriarchy would never allow nuclear families, for example, because it gives the wife far too much power. For most of human history, and across all societies, the de facto unit of society has been man and wife living with the man's extended family. And it will be so again if the standard of living most folks in developed societies suffers a large enough decline.

Serendipper wrote:My understanding of feminism is those demanding (which is a male trait - instead of merely wanting) "equality" with men.

The problem is that equality, in the sense of equality amongst human beings, is something internal. Rights or equal treatment can be demanded, which act is a natural extension of the conviction that one is equal to them of whom one demands those things. There are, and were, feminists who wished to be equal to men in terms of their ability to think and act independently, and I value their wish.

However, those feminists have completely botched their attempts to fulfill that wish by leading themselves and the vast majority of women - who don't share their wish - into self-delusion and societal havoc. Feminism is not about equality, socialism, capitalism or any other set of principles but rather a wanton pursuit of pleasure and status.

Serendipper wrote:My understanding of feminism is those demanding (which is a male trait - instead of merely wanting) "equality" with men.

The problem is that equality, in the sense of equality amongst human beings, is something internal. Rights or equal treatment can be demanded, which act is a natural extension of the conviction that one is equal to them of whom one demands those things. There are, and were, feminists who wished to be equal to men in terms of their ability to think and act independently, and I value their wish.

However, those feminists have completely botched their attempts to fulfill that wish by leading themselves and the vast majority of women - who don't share their wish - into self-delusion and societal havoc. Feminism is not about equality, socialism, capitalism or any other set of principles but rather a wanton pursuit of pleasure and status.

I see what you're saying, but suspect it's deeper than selfish desire for pleasure. I've found feminism to be about pride. Not "pride" as in being proud of humble accomplishments, but haughty irreverence in spite of being relatively disadvantaged for specific tasks. I'm referring to this sort of thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kt5UaPFiYLE

I don't think any man is trying to subjugate women's independence in thought or action and I doubt anyone really wants a brainless, objectified trophy to robotically clean house in lieu of a best friend. That's just silly. Companionship is about communication and relationships are about relating. I think what men are complaining about is the desire of women to be men while at the same time denigrating masculinity. Feminists are actively seeking to antiquate men.

jupiviv wrote:This only works in societies where most jobs (and therefore people) are effectively useless, because they have massive amounts of energy at their disposal. When that goes awry, feminists will don traditionalist attire. So it isn't *really* both, as you indicated with the cake idiom, but usual feminine behaviour of swallowing one's own bs in copious amounts for as long as one is allowed to.

Interesting, and good point. Honestly, I hadn't considered feminism to even be a thing beyond the Western paradigm.

Serendipper wrote:I don't think any man is trying to subjugate women's independence in thought or action and I doubt anyone really wants a brainless, objectified trophy to robotically clean house in lieu of a best friend. That's just silly. Companionship is about communication and relationships are about relating. I think what men are complaining about is the desire of women to be men while at the same time denigrating masculinity. Feminists are actively seeking to antiquate men.

It seems feminism is two things. First and foremost it is the act of feminization. The desire to feminize everything. Jupiviv is emphasising this. But in expression, that is, for the men and women that promote it, none of whom are utterly feminine (just as there exists no utterly masculine man), there exists the masculine drive to assert the principle of equality, by way of blending the two sides. To diminish masculinity just enough to nullify its intimidation factor, yet retain enough of it to keep the machine running. This is a lot more obvious in the West, where helicopter money reigns supreme and pure masculinity is no longer found useful. Androgyny gains useful meaning here.

I think the word you're looking for is "impudence", which is another form of vanity. The masculine form of vanity is pride, and it is distinguished from the former by at least some connection to conscious actions/decisions and reality.

I don't think any man is trying to subjugate women's independence in thought or action

If men want women to remain feminine then they are doing exactly that.

Russell Parr wrote:

This only works in societies where most jobs (and therefore people) are effectively useless, because they have massive amounts of energy at their disposal. When that goes awry, feminists will don traditionalist attire. So it isn't *really* both, as you indicated with the cake idiom, but usual feminine behaviour of swallowing one's own bs in copious amounts for as long as one is allowed to.

Interesting, and good point. Honestly, I hadn't considered feminism to even be a thing beyond the Western paradigm.

Traditionalism exists in the West as well, but perhaps in a slightly different form. The point is that both feminism and traditionalism are about getting men to be concerned about women's - and society's - welfare above all else, whether it is through affirmative action or family values. Obviously, these worldviews (or more accurately, states of mind) have no place for genuine spirituality, even though feminism reinterprets it in female-centric terms.